Fifty new journalism jobs are being created across the country as part of a regional publisher’s investment in its digital operation.

Newsquest has announced the recruitment drive as part of what it says is a £1.5m per annum investment in local journalism.

Thirty-two of the new recruits will be local digital journalists assigned to specific brands at Newsquest newsrooms in Glasgow, North Wales, Essex, Hampshire, Dorset, Bolton, Lancashire, Darlington, Durham, Yorkshire, Hereford, Wales, Somerset, South London, Sussex, Worcester, Oxford, Wiltshire, Buckinghamshire, Berkshire and Cumbria.

Three more roles will be for local digital sport journalists in Bolton, Glasgow and Southampton.

The company is also launching a regional search engine optimisations content team consisting of 14 regional SEO content journalists and an SEO content editor who will manage the team and creating local content.

These roles will be based in the company’s newsrooms in Scotland, Wales, Essex, the South Coast, North West, North East, London, Midlands, Oxfordshire, Wiltshire and Cumbria.

The expansion, which comes after the company announced the appointment of digital subscriptions director Gerard O’Brien last week, will further see the recruitment of data analysts and web developers for its local news platforms.

Newsquest chief executive Henry Faure Walker, pictured, said: “The focus that we have placed on growing engaged local digital audiences over the last few years is paying off, with most of our sites now reaching almost 80pc of their local population.

“This coupled with the success we are having with digital subscriptions, gives us the confidence to launch a major expansion in local journalism.

“This investment underlines our commitment to those towns and cities where our local brands have been the number one news provider for decades.

“We look forward to welcoming new talented digital journalists to join our teams in local newsrooms embedded in communities up and down the country.”